Sound for Screen Week 2 – We need to talk about Kevin 1

This week’s lesson set out an exercise to recreate the opening clip of the film We need to talk about Kevin (2011) by recording ambient sound and Foley. After watching the clip, I divided the clip into four parts. The first part is the indoor space at night, the second part is the dream, the indoor space after waking up from the dream is the third part and the fourth part is the outdoor space during the day. We needed to recording part of the ambient sound in class, and my partner Szymon and I chose to go to the school stairwell to record an indoor ambient sound with buzzing low frequencies. However, due to time constraints, we didn’t get to record much more than that.

Given the need to recreate the sound for this clip, I needed to understand what story the film was telling. So I watched the film and read the article about the film which Jessica sent to us.

I split the clip into four parts, and for the first two parts I want to use some sounds that don’t belong in this picture. I feel that these two spaces are a non-realistic space, especially the second one. The second space is Eva’s dream, her memory. In this part I can use Eva’s subjective perspective (first person view) to design the sound. For the third and fourth part  is to create the sound according to the movie. These two spaces are realistic spaces and it was necessary to first make them sound real before adding some sounds with emotion.

Through understanding the whole story, I learnt about the source of Eva’s nightmares and some of Eva’s most memorable memories. All of which are related to Kevin, Eva’s life changed when Kevin was born. Eva had a family because of this child, and lost her family because of this child. The night Kevin killed someone with a bow and arrow, there was the sound of a bow being drawn and shot, the sound of a police car, and the sound of a lock falling on a door. When Kevin was arrested, there was the sound of reporters taking pictures and the sound of abuse from the victim’s family. These sounds are deeply embedded in Eva’s memory. I intend to put these sounds in the first two spaces.

That’s all for this week’s record.